After the roaring success of ‘Chandrayaan 3’, India is getting ready for yet another ambitious project, this time to explore the deep sea.
‘Samudrayaan’, the mission, aims to explore the deep blue sea up to 6,000 metres. “While a few countries have demonstrated this capability, we are getting ready for it next year”, said M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). The mission will use a manned submersible, with a capacity to carry three ‘aquanauts’, to reach the bottom of the ocean.
Mr. Ravichandran made the announcement in his presentation on ‘Blue Economy – Deep Ocean Mission’ at the symposium on ‘National S&T Missions’ organised by Innovation Science and Technology Foundation (ISTF) in association with IIT-Tirupati and Vijnana Bharati here on Tuesday. He appealed to like-minded institutions to chip in with allied projects, say underwater telephony, mineral mining etc.
On ‘Blue Economy’, he saw the need to develop a sustainable ocean-based economic model to harness coastal resources, take up biodiversity mapping, water tourism, deep sea fisheries, neutraceuticals, generate offshore wind and tide energy, besides predicting the nature of future cyclones to make the ocean a protected area by 2030.
In an apparent attempt to address the criticism on rising Defence Budget, Niti Aayog Member V.K. Saraswat called defence and development as two sides of the same coin, while the investment into the armoury mostly meant to be a deterrent. Future S&T investments had to be in correlation with the nation’s needs, he observed, terming science as the principal driver of change in areas of internet, biotech, environment, healthcare and defence preparedness.
Dwelling on technological warfare scenario, DRDO Director-General B.K. Das emphasised on indigenous efforts for self-reliance. In the context of ‘Non contact warfare’, he wanted the strategy to be ‘compete with and deter the enemy’ with latest defence production.
N. Kalai Selvi, Director-General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), spoke on Aroma Mission, Millet Mission and Waste to Wealth mission to reach S&T benefits to the society. On ‘Social entrepreneurship’ Shanta Biotech Founder K.I. Varaprasad Reddy appealed to every individual to pay back to society.
IIT-Tirupati Director K.N. Satyanarayana and ISTF Chairman D. Narayana Rao sought frequent industry-institution interaction to churn out novel and sustainable ideas.
